Smart Textiles is Accelerating the Future of Healthcare,Sports/Fitness and Military

The driving factors for the growth of this market include the uptrend in wearable electronics industry, increasing demand for sophisticated gadgets, miniaturization of electronic components, and a rapid growth of low-cost smart wireless sensor networks.

(EMAILWIRE.COM, March 08, 2017 ) According to the new market research report "Smart Textiles Market by Type (Passive, Active, Ultra-smart), Function (Sensing, Energy Harvesting, Luminescence & Aesthetics, Thermo-electricity), Industry (Healthcare, Sports & Fitness, Fashion, Military, Automotive), & Geography - Global Forecast to 2020", the market is expected to reach USD 4.72 Billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 33.58% between 2015 and 2020. The driving factors for the growth of this market include the uptrend in wearable electronics industry, increasing demand for sophisticated gadgets, miniaturization of electronic components, and a rapid growth of low-cost smart wireless sensor networks. However, the slow rate of adoption and the lack of exhaustive standards and regulations are the major restraining factors for the growth of the smart textiles market.

Applications in the sports and fitness sector expected to lead the smart textiles market during the forecast period:

The application in the sports and fitness sector is expected to exhibit high growth during the forecast period. The demand for smart textiles in sports and fitness is expected to lead, growing at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. So far, the major sector for applications of smart textiles has been military and defense. From smart shirts that record heart rates to intelligent bands that track physical activities, smart textiles in the form of fitness monitoring devices have a lot of demand from health-conscious people. There is also a considerable demand for the smart textile market in architecture. Non-wearable smart textiles can be found in the architecture and design sector.

Sensors are the most widely-used components in smart textile products:

Textile sensors form a huge and significant sub-segment of smart textiles. This is because sensing ability is the most essential characteristic of any smart textile product. Smart textiles have applications in medical, sports, personal protective equipment, geo-protection, military, and aerospace sectors, where sensing and monitoring are already used and would only be made more efficient if integrated with textiles. Thus, sensing functions have grown rapidly in the smart textile market and the same trend is expected to continue during the forecast period.

In 2014, the Americas was the largest market for smart textiles:

The Americas was the largest market for the smart textiles in 2014. However, the market in APAC is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The Americas accounted for a large share of the global smart textiles market in 2014. The reason behind such rapid growth is technological advancement, growing industries, and increasing demands from consumer electronics and medical applications. This ultimately would boost the growth of the smart textiles market.